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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

biting?!?!?

What do you do when your child bites your other child?

Any advice is welcome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks!

5 comments:

Matti said...

Our biting problem is with Tex...that little sinker is a BITER. But, I am assuming you mean that Breanna is biting. Eden went through a small biting phase because we were hanging around a few other kids who had the habbit. I don't have much advice, but I think you just stay consistant with whatever punishment you choose. Otherwise they start wondering and testing more often to see what the next punishment will be, and if they can get away with it again. I know some mom's who just bite back right away and that usually nips it in the bud. Good luck. With Eden, we just consistantly put her in time out. Then she started to "pretend bite" and we still put her in time out. We wanted to let her know that NO BITING was allowed. I think the consistancy is really what matters.

Jeff Snoy said...

Brooke's Mom bit Brooke and all of Brooke's sisters one time and they never bit again.

natalie said...

My friend just told me what she did with her son when he cut his sisters hair. I think you could adjust it to this situation and her age.
She made her son choose to give up his beloved umbrella that he had just gotten for his birthday or to pay for a haircut to fix the hair. He chose to pay for it, so she would give him chores that were worth 25 cents each and he had to earn $10. Now any time anyone mentions cutting hair he says, "I NO cut hair!!"
hahaha. I thought that was funny.
I agree with Matti. Whatever you decide, be consistent. If you decide that every time she bites, she is going to have to give up a toy (temporarily), then actually do it. Take the toy, tell her why, and put it in a box then hide it in the garage. Each day she doesn't bite, she can earn a toy back.

Leahona said...

Isabella haS bitten Iyla a few times and it usually happens when toys are involved! She is firmly told no and made to say sorry. I made her sit next to the crying baby while I tended to the babies wounds telling her "you hurt sister.. listen to how sad she is... Bitting is not ok" and the like. Isabella ends up in tears looking at the bite mark. She feels bad about it. It has worked and she has not bitten the baby again.

When I was a preschool teacher I had to deal with my fair share of bitters! I have found kids bite for 3 main reasons.

1. out of anger, ie "you took my toy and now your gonna pay"

2. lack of communication "I am not happy about something"

3. teething "my teeth hurt so bad and bitting on skin feels really good on my sore gums"

there is a lot of opinions on how to deal with it. One I would NOT reccomend is biting back. You bite when they bite and tell them biting is bad. It sends mixed signals and really confuses the kid. (I feel the same way about spanking. Why hit a child and say don't hit?? Makes no sense to me. It's like saying don't smoke and blowing a mouthful in someones face!)

I hope this is a quick phase and she grows out of it soon. There is a lot of info online about how to handle bitters. My best advice is constant vigaliance! She can't bite if she is always on your apron strings. That is what we did with bitters at the preschool. They did not leave our side.

To tend to bites you need to wash it with soap and water and then rub it to get the blood back to the area and ice it. It works every time and the bruise will not stick around for very long. If the skin is broken then don't forget to put some neosporin on it to avoid infection. I am sure you know this but I thought I might include it in case some of your readers don't know. Let us know how it turns out! Love Ya!!

Sarah Frantz said...

Elijah has done his fair share of biting, his bites always stem from fights over toys or if someone is hurting him. The last bite he gave was a bad one, he bit a friend on the face. I was exasperated because Elijah is so good at communicating, I couldn't understand why he would resort to biting. It seemed like all the timeouts and other consequences weren't working. So, we had a biting intervention. Two other mommies came over and told him that his friends don't want to play if he bites because it gives them owies. The result of his biting was a whole day inside with no friends. We had the neighbors purposely play outside our house so that Elijah could see them and we talked about why he wasn't allowed to play that day. For him, that was enough, he hasn't bitten anyone since.